With microaggressions, trigger warnings, and safe spaces in the news — as if university campuses are right around the corner from the projects in Baltimore’s West Side — I was wondering on our drive over to Chelsea Friday night about the need for greater sensitivity on the roads. Here in this part of Michigan, the major artery is the Old Chicago Road, U.S. Route 12, which runs between Detroit and Chicago. My only encounter with Highway 12 is in its two-lane version, which often means having to drive behind vehicles whose drivers hover around the 55 mph speed limit.
So when the broken lines give faster drivers the green light to pass, how do those being passed feel? As the one doing the passing, I am aware of some of the frustration that builds up while waiting for an opportunity to pass, along with the sort of speculation on a slow driver’s reasons for driving slowly — bad car? Almost home? Lots of time on their hands? Oblivious to other cars on the road? On the other side of the experience, do slow drivers feel embarrassed to be passed? Do they wonder if the faster driver is angry or frustrated? Do they resent being made to look like a slow driver? All these questions make me wonder if roads are safe spaces for Americans’ feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelings.
The other passing thought (see what I did there?) comes with the accumulation of years. I recently turned 39 according to a base 17 number system (and expect Jeff Cagle to correct the math) and am aware in ways I have not been until now that the clock is running out and that I am definitely on the back nine of life. So why is it, if I want more time rather than less, that I still want weeks like the last one to hurry up so that I can get to this week — which is Spring Break? Shouldn’t I savor every moment even the ones that are less pleasant or more hectic or more demanding than others? Won’t a time come when I want some of these minutes back?
Instead of being annoyed with a slow driver, should I be thanking him? Will the sufficiency of Scripture or papal authority resolve my dilemma, oh wretched man that I am?
Old Life 
Ok. But Prius drivers are just playing schoolmarm on the freeway. Besides emasculating themselves they’re trying to impose their impotency on me. Get your leaf mobile in the far right lane, weenie.
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Prius drivers are saving the planet, while pissing off many of its inhabitants.
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Good old M-12 (Michigan Avenue in that part of the state)! Just be glad you weren’t trying to pass several semi-trucks, which is what usually happened to me on that route. And most of those slow drivers are old farts who aren’t in any hurry to get anyplace. OTOH, which is worse, them or the maniacs who seem to seem to think everyone else on the road is in their way to their own destination … pushing, tailgating, etc.
BTW, I’ve been meaning to comment about your choice of thread photos lately: the Bobbsey Twins (DDT – Dumb and Dumber Together), David Bowie, and now NASCAR?!! Puke. Just because you pass by Mi. Int’l, Speedway doesn’t mean we all have to suffer for it. These are especially hard to take in the larger size this website redesign provides. Ugh.
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“Let’s burn some dust here, eat my rubber!”
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My Ford Ranger with a Mazda sticker on it just doesn’t have the get-up-and-go that the nuts on the backroads of Alabama and Georgia seem to expect from it. I got passed traveling home for Spring Break (last week) a couple times, and I try to wave or smile to let the raging maniac know that I’m not offended that he/she passed me, but also maybe to encourage them to take it easy, bro. Also, not everybody in the sweet ole south feels the need to ride your tail until they can pass, so sometime slowpokes never know they’re holding somebody up. In that case the smile and wave serves as an apology.
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cam5254, life is a veil of tears. Just trying to do my part.
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Walton, isn’t there such a thing as speeding decently and in order?
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1) finally! mystery revealed : D.G. Hart:born: ‘circa 1950s’ (wikipedia); 2) is it r2k for kingdom citizens to want back meaningless minutes for meaningless activity expended here ;3) and re: “sufficiency of Scripture” ,some spring break studies show a significantly greater # of traffic fatalities ( mostly <18 base-17 year olds) but still, validating, the disputed premise, that ’ laws’ actually save life
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Speaking of underage driving, has ‘Merica ever endured such an effort of delayed adolescence as Millenials forsaking a driver’s license unitl well past sixteen? There’s slackers and then there’s the Millenials. But go ahead and keep job switching and quitting. I need to bank it for the next twenty years.
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“delayed adolescence as Millenials forsaking a driver’s license unitl well past sixteen”
Who needs a license when you have “Grand Theft Auto XXVII”???
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Ali, you need to look into hiring Ann Voskamp’s translator for all us ASL (ali as second “language”) US Americans. Your grammar! Your punctuation! Your vocabulary! They burn! They hurts us! They makes ours headses hurt!
babylonbee.com/news/ann-voskamp-addresses-conference-via-translator/
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